Nefarian
thumb|Nefarian's human form, Lord Victor Nefarius Nefarian is an end-game instance boss in World of Warcraft, located atop Blackwing Lair after Chromaggus. He has two forms: his Human form, Lord Victor Nefarius, and his dragon form, Nefarian proper. Nefarian is an extremely difficult encounter as it requires a full 40-man raid to win along with strong coordination and leadership. On average, the full encounter consists of 3 stages and takes about 20-30 minutes to finish. Up until the introduction of the 40-man Temple of Ahn'Qiraj instance in early 2006, Nefarian was considered by most players to be one of the most difficult of all boss encounters. "Downing" Nefarian is nevertheless a crowning acheivement guilds pursuing end-game content. Background/Lore The Black Dragonflight was among the greatest threats to mortal life the world has ever known, and currently resides in Blackwing Lair. Led by the fallen Aspect, Deathwing, the black dragons ravaged and subverted the kingdoms of humanity and elves for generations. Yet, during the Battle of Grim Batol (nearly fifteen years ago), Deathwing was defeated by his fellow Aspects and thought destroyed. Though some believe the great leviathan is merely hiding in seclusion, it is clear he has no direct control over his diabolical flight. Since Deathwing's departure, his eldest children have arisen to lead their brethren and recoup their failing numbers. Deathwing's eldest son, the malicious and cunning Nefarian, has claimed the burning fortress of Blackrock Spire as his aerie. There, aided by his loyal Dragonspawn, he fights a constant battle with Ragnaros and his forces for control of the mountain, and ultimately control of the entire region. Nefarian has vowed to crush Ragnaros. To this end, he has recently begun efforts to bolster his forces, much as his father Deathwing had attempted to do in ages past. However, where Deathwing failed, it now seems the scheming Nefarian may be succeeding. Nefarian's mad bid for dominance has even attracted the ire of the Red Dragonflight, which has always been the Black Flight's greatest foe. Though Nefarian's intentions are known, the methods he is using to achieve them remain a mystery. It is believed, however that Nefarian has been experimenting with the blood of all of the various Dragon Flights to create a chromatic Dragonflight as unstoppable warriors. One of Nefarian's mightiest supporters is his younger sister, Onyxia. A clever, highly intelligent dragon, Onyxia is fond of assuming mortal guises, which she uses to secretly manipulate the affairs of mortal politics and commerce. His human form, Victor Nefarius, has struck up an alliance with Rend Blackhand, though he only uses him and his clan to further his own goals. The red dragon Vaelastrasz has sworn to hunt Nefarian until the end of his days. Note: Many people say that Nefarian is also called Blackwing, however no evidence has come up about that. The name of the instance where he is found is not enough evidence, as no where in the name does it suggest that a being called Blackwing even lives inside this lair. The instance is not called "Blackwing's''' Lair" after all (compare to [[Onyxia's Lair|Onyxia's''' Lair]]). Most likely the "Blackwing" part in the name is just a general reference to the black dragons that dwell in this dungeon. It is also concieveable that it is named in honor of the black dragonflight, hence the connection between it and Blackrock Spire. Nefarian and possibly Neltharion's names are derived from the word "nefarious," which means "extremely wicked." World of Warcraft Encounter To activate the Encounter a person must walk up to Nefarian's throne and talk through what he says. Upon completion of this he says "Let the Games begin." From here, Nefarian is invulnerable, and walks amid the raid randomly shadow bolting, mind controling people and casting fear on random targets. The room begins to flood with Drakonids at the same time. There are 6 types of drakonids that spawn. In every Nefarian encounter you will fight Chromatic Drakonids; the largest and toughest drakonids. Fortunately they spawn in far fewer number than the other color. In addition to the Chromatic Drakonid, 2 other random colors of Drakonids will spawn as well. One color will spawn from the southern door, and one color will spawn from the northern door. Colors are fixed for each instance: if Nefarian is attempted multiple times between instance resets, same color combinations will appear. Different colors of Drakonids have different special abilities and are resistant to different schools of magic. Note that, unlike some other Blackwing Lair mobs, these Drakonids are not particularly vulnerable to any magic. Below is a list of their colors and associated abilities / resistances: * Red Drakonid - Short range cone DoT fire attack, stacks; resistant to Fire * Blue Drakonids - Attack which drains mana; resistant to Frost; slightly resistant to Arcane * Green Drakonids - Stun, resistant to Nature * Black Drakonids - Moderately powerful direct damage fire attack; resistant to Shadow and Fire * Bronze Drakonids - Reduces Attack and Cast Speed; resistant to Arcane The Drakonids can be killed by either AoE attacks or direct damage as aside from Chromatics, they do not hit very hard and do not have a lot of health. After killing 42 Drakonids Nefarian will return to the battle, landing on the balcony in Dragon Form. Before landing he will cast an AoE (ignores LoS) Shadowflame on the entire raid. This version of the spell does about 1000 shadow damage and is completely resistable. Every member of the raid must be wearing an Onyxia Scale Cloak to avoid the fatal DoT from the Shadowflame. By now most of the drakonids should be dead. Move your raid to this area and start DPSing him down, from here on out its simple damage dealing with a few twists. He has all the abilties of normal dragons: Conical breath attack (shadow based), cleave, and bellowing roar. He also does Veil of Shadow on the target nearest to the center of his hitbox. However, approximately every 25-35 seconds he will "call out" a specific class. During class-call outs, that class will have some negative effect on them. Below is a list of each class and the effect their call-out has on them: * Druids: **Quote: "Druids and your silly shapeshifting. Let's see it in action!" **Effect: Permanently stuck in Cat Form for duration. **Solution: Safest call is to stay back and wait for the debuff to wear off. Some raids may let the Druids run up and DPS, however this puts them at risk for getting feared into the Shadowflame and dying. * Hunters: **Quote: "Hunters and your annoying pea-shooters!" **Effect: Equipped ranged weapon instantly broken. **Solution: Hunters should either manually unequip their bow, or set up a macro to instantly unequip. Be sure to bring extra ranged weapons in the event your bow/gun does break. * Mages: **Quote: "Mages too? You should be more careful when you play with magic..." **Effect: Cast Wild Polymorph on random raid members. **Solution: Mages should stay out of LoS with MT and use ice block to remove this debuff. (See below) New information: Iceblock DOES remove the Wild Polymorph debuff. (as of 4/15/06 1.10.1) Not confirmed: Exiting LoS of a large majority of the raid will cause RANDOM members of the raid to be polymorphed (regardless if they are in LoS or not), including possibly the MT. Mages should blink to the back of the raid and remain in LoS, this makes it more likely they will Polymorph eachother. (Confirmation/correction of this information greatly appreciated.) * Priests: **Quote: "Priests! If you're going to keep healing like that, we might as well make it a little more interesting!" **Effect: Direct Heals will subsequently DoT their target (Renew and Power Word: Shield do still work normally though). The DoT is stackable and can end up doing a lot of damage if not caught quickly. **Solution: Stop use of direct healing spells for the duration. Druids and Paladins/Shamans must compensate. * Paladins: **Quote: "Paladins, I've heard you have many lives. Show me." **Effect: Cast Blessing of Protection on Nefarian. **Solution: For Alliance, palladins should cast Judgement of Wisdom on Nefarian, and all casters should wand back mana while he is protected. * Rogues: **Quote: "Rogues? Stop hiding and face me!" **Effect: Teleported and immobilized in place close to Nefarian. **Solution: In some cases Rogues will be rooted in a "safe" spot and MT adjustment is not required. If rogues do get rooted in the Cleave/Shadowflame area, the MT must turn Nefarian 45-90 degrees away from the raid to prevent rogue deaths. * Shamans: **Quote: "Shamans, show me what your totems can do!" **Effect: Give Nefarian buffed totems. (Can a Horde member please make this more specific) More specifically, these totems include windfury, and fire nova. They seem to have modestly more health than normal totems, and they very quickly will become a veritable forest of totems. Concentrated firepower isn't needed to take down totems, but weaker melee hits won't destroy some totems in single hits. The totems, while problematic, sound worse than they are - the major issue (raid-wide) here will be DPS on Nefarian becoming nonexistant due to clean up efforts or losing someone extremely low on health due to getting hit by a fire nova pulse. The worst part about this call is the huge drain on shaman mana and mana regeneration. **Solution: All single target DPS switch to the totems and bring them down as fast as possible. There's not much else to do besides weather the tax on shaman mana - if shaman are low on mana, waiting to drink a mana potion until AFTER their call is over may spare them a wasted potion and some totem spawns. * Warriors: **Quote: "Warriors, I know you can hit harder than that! Let's see it!" **Effect: Permanently stuck in Berserker Stance plus an additional 30% damage taken for duration. **Solution: Extra heals for the MT. At the end of the debuff Warriors must manually return to their desired stance. * Warlocks: **Quote: "Warlocks, you shouldn't be playing with magic you don't understand. See what happens?" **Effect: 2 Infernals per Warlock are summoned. They will stun and do minor (physical?) damage to the warlock and those immediately surrounding them. **Solution: They're immune to fire damage but are easily taken down by mage AoE. Assistance from Rogues and Warriors is also helpful. Warlocks, try to stand in an isolated area in the back of the raid for the duration of Phase 2 to avoid stunning healers when the infernals come down. When his health reaches 20% he will resurrect all the Drakonids killed in Phase 1 as "Bone Constructs". They hit fairly hard but do not have a lot of health, so they are relatively easily AoE'd to death. It is advisable to move AoE groups into position where the Drakonids were originally killed prior to reaching 20% HP to ensure their swift elimination, and to avoid healers getting swarmed. Alliance has an advantage here, as the Paladins' Holy Wrath can quickly decimate the Constructs (assuming they can afford to stop healing temporarily). After this he continues to cast his class debuffs up till he dies. Nefarian encounter can be reattempted any number of times, however, it takes 15 minutes for him to reset after a wipe (as of patch 1.9.3). Category:Instance Characters Category:Bosses Category:Dragon